Data-based components, platforms, methods, and techniques are ubiquitous in modern technology. A vast array of devices of various kinds and categories source, receive, transport, and/or otherwise rely, one way or the other, upon data. Such data may, for example, comprise status information, command and control information, or user/application content. Numerous data handling protocols exist to facilitate the movement of such data including any number of signaling protocols.
Aircraft comprise a particularly challenging example in this regard. Modern aircraft include a large number of data producing and data using components. In many cases the information in question is important or even critical to the proper and safe operation of the aircraft. As a result, a number of practices are observed to ensure the operational integrity of the aircraft notwithstanding potential problems that might from time to time arise.
As one example, aircraft typically employ a redundant data bus architecture. Important data travels from one point to another via each of a first and a second data bus. During operation, the data carried by a first one of these data busses will be used to the exclusion of the data carried by the remaining bus unless and until that first data bus exhibits sufficiently degraded or failed operability. To protect the data (at least to some extent) and also to facilitate the detection of such degradation/failure, relatively elaborate and intense error correction/detection data handling protocols are employed in conjunction with these data busses.
Though an acceptable safe data handling architecture can be achieved using this approach, the challenges and costs are relatively high. The copper alone that comprises these data busses can weigh a good deal and the connectors that are typically employed to couple the data handling components also contribute significantly in this regard. This weight, in turn, reduces the passenger/cargo-handling capacity of the aircraft, often by considerable amounts.
Another challenge and set of costs corresponds to the development of the software that facilitates the protected nature of the data handling protocol. Very high standards are applied with respect to the predictability and reliability of software intended for use in the data handling functionality of a modern aircraft. This, in turn, typically translates into very high development and testing costs for such software. Some estimates indicate that every single line of fielded code for a modern airplane costs in the neighborhood of one hundred and sixty dollars (leading to an aggregate cost, in some cases, of more than eighty million dollars).
Such costs arise, of course, because software seems necessary at every turn in a modern aircraft. Not only is considerable software dedicated as noted to ensuring the reliable transport of data from one component to another, considerable additional software finds application in the cockpit. That a typical aircraft cockpit displays a large and densely packed number of information gauges is axiomatic. As aircraft manufacturers strive to move away from mechanical information gauges for any number of good and valid reasons, the replacement of such mechanical systems with modern electronic displays has brought with it a corresponding voracious appetite for yet more software to translate incoming data into displayable content.
An interesting point exists in this regard that itself speaks volumes regarding the difficulties of achieving and maintaining desired levels of reliability using the aforementioned approaches. Notwithstanding the use of redundant data busses as noted, and notwithstanding all of the advances made over the years with respect to the power and reliability of error correction and error detection-capable data handling protocols, the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States still requires that an aircraft having an otherwise non-mechanical set of information gauges must still nevertheless also have a mechanical gauge for each of airspeed information, altimeter information, and attitude information. As such mechanical information gauges are provided for both the pilot and co-pilot position, the total weight often attributed to such systems is often in the neighborhood of eighty pounds; this is weight-carrying capacity that every aircraft designer and operator would like to see returned. Present solutions, however, are simply not reliable enough to warrant the removal of such mechanical information gauges from the design of a modern aircraft.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.